


To An Inauspicious Start

by Carmenlire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Coffee Shops, First Meetings, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Insomnia, Introspection, Late at Night, Lawyer Alec Lightwood, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Alec Lightwood, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:55:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24949567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: There’s a man and it’s probably nothing.Alec steps into the 24/7 coffee shop at a time no one should be awake-- not the employees, not the four customers who look mostly dead and full of long suffering regret, and certainly not Alec himself.He’s having trouble sleeping these days.Or, Alec visits a coffee shop in the middle of the night and it's not quite the dead end he'd imagined.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 22
Kudos: 205





	To An Inauspicious Start

**Author's Note:**

> bro I've been listening to decalcomania for 4 hours straight,,

There’s a man and it’s probably nothing.

Alec steps into the 24/7 coffee shop at a time no one should be awake-- not the employees, not the four customers who look mostly dead and full of long suffering regret, and certainly not Alec himself.

He’s having trouble sleeping these days.

As he waits at the cash register, he thinks over his schedule. He took a late nap yesterday evening and it just served to fuck with his circadian rhythm even more. He has to be at the office in four hours and it seems absurd, to be dressed in a three piece suit in a shitty cafe where the lights are unflattering and flickering and the staff looks like they’re two espresso shots from collapsing.

Alec can relate.

He orders his black eye, thankful when the barista doesn’t blink at the horrifying request, and turns toward the half dozen empty tables.

There’s a woman sitting in the corner with a stroller. He can see the dark shadows under her eyes from here as she absently soothes her kid.

Across the room, there are a couple of teenagers, both of whom look equal parts emotional and blase as they huddle together on the same side of the booth.

Hastily removing his gaze from them, his eyes land on the only other occupant of the coffee shop.

It’s probably sleep deprivation edging towards delirium that makes Alec want to sit down across from the man.

He’s handsome, in an in your face kind of way that makes Alec almost want to apologize for daring to look at him in the first place. But there’s a softer undertone to the man’s appearance that makes Alec want to take a second look, a third and fourth.

It’s in the smudge of his eyeliner, the way his expression seems almost pasted onto his face-- a facade hiding what he’s truly feeling.

Alec only recognizes it because he sees the same tightness in his own face whenever he looks in the mirror.

He wants to keep looking, allows himself a ludicrous moment to contemplate throwing caution and common sense to the wind to introduce himself to the man who sips at his tea with all the elegance expected of a drawing room engagement.

Alec’s not that kind of man, though, and anyone at a coffee shop this far before dawn can only be seeking their own sort of solace. He’d be an ass to infringe upon that, not when he came here to be by himself but among others in the same way.

Choosing his seat by the window, Alec shrugs out of his suit jacket and drapes it across the back of his chair before taking a seat. Mondays always come earlier and it seems like lately, they’d been barreling into him earlier than ever.

He can’t deny that most people would probably still consider it Sunday night.

The only sound in the little cafe is the ill-tempered screech of the espresso machine, the tiny gurgling of a baby fighting sleep. It’s pitch black outside with barely a soul on the street.

It’s soothing in its own way, Alec thinks. It’s almost as though he’s not a person in this space, at this time. He’s not a man aiming to make partner before the year’s out. He’s not a fucking disgrace of a son keeping a secret from his parents that would blow the whole damn family apart in its scandal and deviance.

He’s not a depressed fuck with more issues than he knows what to do with, no matter that he’ll be twenty six in a few weeks and by all accounts-- his own estimations-- he should have stopped feeling like he was barely clinging onto adulthood years ago.

That’s the thing, he thinks with a derisive little smile that’s aimed at himself before anyone else. He’s an adult and there’s no denying it but jesus christ sometimes he feels like the anvil’s about to drop on top of his head at any moment, someone popping out from the woodwork to tell him he actually has been fucking up his life all these years, that he’s wasted it all on petty promises and aimless cyclical thinking and it’s all downhill from here.

As though he doesn’t already feel like that most days.

His stomach gives a little pang and Alec spares a moment to pin down the last time he ate. There was a granola bar when he woke up from his nap several hours ago, before he spent another several hours staring at the wall and wondering if everyone else feels like this too and is just better at hiding it.

Deciding it’s not worth the effort of ordering from the cafe’s limited menu-- he doesn’t want a fucking croissant and the oatmeal would probably taste like cardboard-- Alec leans back in his chair and stares out the window, which mostly means he watches himself in the reflection of the window, it turning into a mirror throwing his own pristine appearance back in his face.

It’s almost a surprise that he doesn’t look as haggard as he feels. But no, he shaved and slipped into one of his dozen pressed suits, perfectly tailored and understated.

It wouldn’t do for a Lightwood to look anything less than his best, whether they’re going to the office or an all night cafe on a forgotten street.

As he eases into himself, thoughts that he’d been pushing back crowd closer in the quiet and in the sharp haziness of the hour, Alec admits that there are worse places to be.

Sure, maybe he wishes he was sleeping and he would definitely be more comfortable in his hoodie sinking into his couch, but this is what he’d wanted, what he needed.

There’s a barrier between him and the rest of the world and while it’s self-imposed, he likes to imagine that he has control here too, that his suit and watch and fucking coiffed hair makes him inaccessible in a way so that it doesn’t feel so much like he can’t connect to everybody else but that they can’t approach him.

It’s a fine line but he thinks it keeps him sane, that illusion of control.

He’s not so caught up in his head that he doesn’t notice the barista set his drink down. He thanks her with a nod and takes the first jarring sip that almost makes him choke on the bitterness.

It’s good. It makes him feel something, even if it’s mostly revulsion and resignation that he’s going to finish the whole damn drink before probably ordering another.

Alec’s twenty five and thinks he shouldn’t feel like this. He feels old and not in the charming, romantic way.

In the way that probably means he’ll be lucky to make it to thirty at this rate.

Work is a never ending garbage fire and just the thought of stepping into the glass fronted building makes his skin crawl. Dealing with pompous asshole coworkers he really couldn’t care less about, humoring clients that are rude and frankly, dumb as fuck and entitled to boot. It’s all a drain on him and he doesn’t know how he’s going to make it through the next thirty years like this when it’s barely been three and he already feels like he’s mostly dead.

Then there’s that other matter that ebbs and flows through his conscious like trash in the ocean. It’s weighing particularly heavy lately, the thought that there’s a whole area of his life that his family don’t know about-- can’t know about-- and sometimes he’s so tired of catering to their bigoted, shitty little sensibilities that he wants to scream, thinks he’d scream his throat raw if given half the opportunity.

Jace is getting married at the end of the year and having to listen to him plan honeymoons and engagement parties and stress about vows and looking like a fool during the first dance, all while planning a bachelor party that none of the attendees will remember if all goes well, is--

Well, it’s a lot. On top of everything else, it fills Alec with a hollowness in his chest and it burns, shrinks his soul until he feels like grinding it under his heel.

He’ll never have that-- the celebration, the loudness, the acceptance, the purity of happiness and hope.

It’s a pill that’s becoming increasingly bitter the older he gets and it’s another thing Alec can’t even fathom dealing with until he fucking dies.

Heavy is the head, he thinks to himself with a mocking grin but that’s bullshit and he knows it. In another world, Alec Lightwood is brave and daring and maybe even a little selfish.

In this world, he’s the heir dealt a shit hand and that means there’s no respite. There’s only forward, slow plodding steps as he becomes the man his parents groomed him to be, the son set to take over the family reigns without blemish or complaint.

Goddamn, he’s tired.

Alec doesn’t know how long he sits there but eventually he notices that the light is a little brighter, the window less a mirror revealing all the weaknesses he tries to hide and instead showing the outside world, the hum of a city waking up for the day.

Straightening his back with a little groan, cracking his neck and wincing, Alec takes a look around the shop.

The teenagers look mostly asleep in the corner-- that is until Alec sees one of them kiss the one who was crying earlier on top of their head before adjusting his earbud and settling back.

The woman and kid must’ve left awhile ago, their place clean and empty.

The man who Alec had almost made a fool of himself over is gone, too. In the privacy of his own mind, Alec’s not afraid to admit he’s a little sad about that. Nothing could’ve happened.

Nothing did happen.

But Alec’s always been a little bit of a hopeless romantic, despite his best efforts. He tends to land on a subject, an idea, a detail, and worry it to shreds, turning it over and over until everything’s just the way he likes it, barely recognizable.

So maybe there was a part of Alec that thought what if, maybe, one day, perhaps.

But the man is gone and while Alec’s favorite past time is wasting energy on things that have no hope of happening, he files the intriguing stranger away in his head to dwell on during another rough night when human connection seems the worst sort of punishment and his greatest solace all wrapped up into one faraway ideal.

That is, until he looks down at his empty cup and sees a napkin where there shouldn’t be one.

Alec has a weird but deep seated resentment towards napkins and never uses them, never picks them up just in case. But, there’s a napkin on the edge of his table and even from here he can see the dark smudges of ink lining the corner.

_You look like you’re having a rough night, darling. Us insomniacs have to stick together. Let me know if you’re ever in the mood to share the weight on your shoulders with a stranger who’s been told his are excellent for crying or comfort or a little distraction. -- Magnus_

Magnus.

Interesting name, Alec thinks as he reads the message a second time-- and a third and a fourth and a fifth until he thinks he’ll see the stupid little napkin in his dreams, until the numbers accompanying the message seem seared into his mind.

His first thought is that this Magnus is kind. Who does that, not only notices a stranger have an awful time but goes out of their way to do something about it.

It’s intriguing, a little scary, a lot tempting.

Still. 

Alec’s a grown man and he doesn’t need a shoulder. He’s too busy for that, has far too much at stake to let someone else-- a stranger at that-- see all the shit that his brain spews at him every minute of every fucking day.

No, he decides. A kind gesture, while appreciated, does not have to be acknowledged.

Wishing Magnus a very lovely Monday-- hell, a great week-- Alec shakes his head a little to clear his thoughts and tamp down on the urge to text a stranger all of his problems and hope, by the grace of God, that they can do anything to alleviate some of the weight from his chest.

Sighing and wishing he didn’t sound so damned tired even to his own ears, Alec stands and makes his way back to the cashier to order another black eye and start towards the office. He’ll probably be the first one there but he has a reputation to uphold, a partnership to earn.

Still.

Before he leaves his table, Alec swipes the napkin and stuffs it into his pocket.

It’s almost unconsciously done and there’s no care in the placement. The napkin is crumpled, balled up and crinkled in his pants pocket and he mostly forgets about it. 

When he does his laundry at the end of the week, though, he still doesn’t throw it out. He walks to the trash can and his hand hovers over the bag for a minute, for two, until he sighs in exasperation at his own idiot self and tosses it, still crumpled with the ink smudging at the edges, into his takeout drawer.

There’s a man and it’s probably nothing. Given a little time, a gentle nudge the next time Alec’s too tired to make dinner and ransacks his kitchen for his Chinese takeout only to push the napkin away in frustration and exhaustion, a soft meeting of the eyes across the cafe on another night, weeks later, when Alec’s so tired he could cry and Magnus is sipping another cup of tea and working on a crossword puzzle with a quill pen, of all things.

He might be onto something, though, Alec wonders as he finds that message months later after a dozen incidental meetings where Magnus never pushes but Alec feels moved, different, all the same.

In the deepest corners of his mind, the hidden pockets of his heart, Alec hopes it’s something, anything.

To his surprise and delight and mild terror, it turns into everything.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire!


End file.
